The subject of the present invention is a device for attaching a body to a child's pushchair making it possible to fit and remove the body from the pushchair in a simple and reliable way. The term body is understood to mean any object that can accommodate a child, such as a cot, a carrycot, a seat, etc., and which can be installed on a pushchair.
Various types of child's pushchair are known. In a first type, illustrated in particular in French Patent 2,693,162 (AMPAFRANCE), the pushchair has a folding chassis and a body made of fabric held by rods. The pushchair can be folded very satisfactorily and the body can pivot, for example so that a seated and a lying-down position can be offered. However, the need to be able to take the body out of the pushchair chassis has arisen, this especially being the case if the body used is a carrycot with rigid non-folding shell. It then is necessary to take the carrycot out of the pushchair before folding the latter.
A second type of pushchair is also known, from European Patent Application No. 0,339,890 (HESTAIR MACLAREN), and this type comprises a chassis supporting a seat that can be angled with respect to the chassis and which can be taken out of and put back in the chassis. The chassis has two lateral seat mounts in the form of inverted V's and with ribs on their edges. The seat comprises two lateral pieces which have a central recess in the shape of an inverted V to cooperate with a mount of the chassis and with two grooves which the ribs of the mount can enter. Such a system is relatively fragile, unstable before it is locked if one end of the seat is pulled or pushed and not very easy to manipulate. This is because the ribs on the mounts and the ribs on the pieces of the seat have small dimensions which, besides their fragility, forces an operator who wishes to put a seat back in the pushchair to position each piece of the seat simultaneously and precisely above the corresponding mount of the pushchair chassis. Should such positional accuracy not be achieved, there is a risk that one or both pieces of the seat may not engage with the ribs on the corresponding mounts, and the operator runs the risk of the seat dropping to the ground.
Furthermore, the shape of the mounts means that the movements of mounting or dismantling the seat from the pushchair chassis need to be more or less at right angles to the position of the body. Thus, if the mounts are in a position such that the seat once installed will be horizontal, then the movement of the seat needs to be more or less vertical. When the position of the mounts is such that the seat once installed will be at an angle, the movement for installing the seat on the chassis needs to be more or less at right angles to the angle at which the seat is going to be inclined. It is thus clear that installing the seat on the chassis becomes a particularly tricky operation, as the operator has both to position each piece of the seat laterally with respect to the corresponding mount and to position the seat at such an angle that installation is possible. Another drawback of this type of pushchair is that the buttons for altering the angle of the seat and for unlocking it with a view to removing it from the pushchair chassis are extremely close together, which may lead to a user confusing them.